Chapter 2 Emergency at Sage Ranch

“Cody,” she said, her voice betraying a hint of impatience. “Is everything alright? I just closed the Veridian deal, so I’m a little swamped.” The subtext was clear: make it quick.

There was a pause, longer than usual. A faint crackle on the line, the kind that reminded her of rural connections. “Sierra.” Cody’s voice, usually jovial, sounded different. It was strained, tight, and a little hoarse. The usual background noise of his chaotic life, country music, distant dog barks, and the rumble of an old truck were absent. There was only a profound silence, punctuated by his uneven breathing.

Sierra’s meticulously constructed professional façade wavered, a hairline fracture appearing in its pristine surface. A prickle of unease, cold and sharp, traced its way down her spine. This wasn't a call about money or a new, harebrained scheme.

“Cody?” she repeated, her voice sharper now, demanding. “What’s wrong? You sound… upset.”

“It’s Dad, Sierra,” he blurted out, the words tumbled over each other, laced with an urgency that sent a jolt through her. “He… he collapsed this morning. We had to take him to the ER in Kingman.”Sierra’s hand tightened around her coffee mug. The Guatemalan single-origin, moments ago a source of comfort, now felt scalding. “Collapsed? What do you mean collapsed? What happened? Is he okay?” Her mind, so adept at processing complex data and market trends, struggled to grasp the simple, terrifying implication of Cody’s words. Her father was an immovable fixture, tough as nails and as unyielding as the Arizona landscape he loved. He simply didn't collapse.

“The doctors… they’re running tests. They’re saying it is Parkinson’s; advanced stages. He’s stable, for now, but it’s bad, Sierra. Really bad. They’re talking about long-term care, about him barely being able to walk, let alone try to run a ranch.” Cody’s voice cracked, a raw, unfamiliar sound from her usually carefree brother.

The words echoed in Sierra’s pristine office, each syllable a devastating blow. Not being able to run the ranch anymore. The image of her father, Frank Quinn, perpetually astride a horse, his weathered face shaded by his Stetson, was so ingrained in her memory that the idea of him incapacitated felt like a violation of the natural order.

“And that’s not all,” Cody continued, his voice barely a whisper now, thick with despair. “The bills, Sierra. The medical bills are going to be astronomical. And the ranch has already been struggling. Dad was behind on a few payments, and with him out of commission… The bank is already threatening foreclosure. There’s just no way, Sierra. I don’t know what to do. We’re going to lose Sage Ranch.”

The phone slipped, nearly tumbling from her numb fingers. Foreclosure. The word hung in the air, a death knell for the only home she had ever truly known, no matter how desperately she had tried to sever ties with it. The sleek Manhattan office, the glittering skyline, the triumphant echoes of the Veridian deal, all of it dissolved into a fuzzy, irrelevant backdrop. Her meticulously constructed city life, a fortress of ambition and detachment, shattered into a million irreparable pieces. The expensive coffee, forgotten, grew cold in her hand as the ghost of red dust began to furiously swirl, no longer banished, but rising, suffocating.

The phone felt heavy in Sierra’s hand, a dead weight mirroring the sudden leaden sensation in her chest. Her father, Frank Quinn, had advanced Parkinson’s? It seemed impossible that the unyielding patriarch could be rendered incapable of the only life he’d ever known. The thought left her exposed to a cold, unfamiliar dread..

Foreclosure. The word, a blunt instrument, had shattered the polished veneer of her Manhattan life. And Cody, her perpetually optimistic, utterly impractical brother, had been reduced to a desperate whisper.

Sierra inhaled sharply, the expensive coffee forgotten, a bitter taste on her tongue. Her mind, usually a seamless engine of logic and strategy, wrestled with the sudden onslaught of devastating facts. Daddy, Parkinson’s, the ranch, foreclosure. Each piece of information was a splinter, digging deeper into the carefully constructed detachment from her past. The immediate, rational part of her brain, the one that had just closed the multi-million dollar Veridian deal, began to whir, albeit sluggishly, into crisis mode.

She gripped the mug, her knuckles white. “Parkinson’s,” she murmured, the diagnosis a death knell not just for her daddy’s ability to work, but for the very idea of him. Frank Quinn didn’t get sick; he was too strong for that. He was as rugged as the Arizona landscape, unyielding, eternal. He, the foundation of her own strength, was crumbling, taking with it the last bastion of her childhood.

A wave of impotent fury washed over her, hot and acrid. Fury at Cody for letting things get this bad, for his chronic inability to see beyond the next sunset. Fury at her father for his stubborn pride, for never admitting he might need help, for perhaps burying his head in the sand as the ranch slowly bled cash. And, most unsettlingly, fury at the ranch itself. Always the burden, always the anchor dragging her back to a past she had painstakingly tried to outrun.

She remembered the endless chores, the dust that clung to everything, the relentless heat, the isolation. She recalled the day her mother died, the ranch felt like a tomb, heavy with unspoken grief. That was when she’d made her decision, a silent vow to herself that she would carve out a life as far removed from that desolate existence as possible. She’d excelled in school, won scholarships, worked three jobs through college, and clawed her way into the cutthroat world of New York marketing. Every designer suit, every high-rise view, every successful deal was a brick in the wall she’d built between herself and Sage Ranch. Now, a single phone call had reduced her wall to rubble.

Sierra forced herself to breathe, pushing the rising tide of emotion back into its dark corner. This was a problem. A complex, multi-faceted problem requiring immediate, decisive action. And she was a problem-solver.

Her gaze swept over her opulent office, the sleek minimalist furniture, the framed awards, the panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline. This was her domain, where she thrived. The ranch was a foreign country, a hostile terrain she had long since abandoned. Yet, the word "foreclosure" had struck a primal chord, a deep-seated fear she hadn't known she possessed. Losing Sage Ranch wasn't just about losing property; it was about losing a piece of her identity, however much she had tried to disown it. She was a Quinn, and Quinns stuck together.

She opened her tablet, her fingers flying across the screen. First, a quick search for "Parkinson's early stage prognosis." The results were bleak, confirming Cody's grim assessment: progressive, debilitating, no cure. Ranch work would indeed be impossible, especially the way her father worked.